Golf

CROMWELL — No doubt, Marc Leishman would love to have won his first PGA Tour event with a downhill, 25-foot, left-to-right putt on the 18th green.

"Yes, and then have the wife and kids run out on the green to give me hugs," he said.

That was not the scenario last year at TPC River Highlands when Leishman won for the first time on the Tour at the Travelers Championship. He did it the stress-free way, going out early in the final round Sunday with an 8-under 62 and sitting in the clubhouse while the leaders struggled to beat his 14-under figure in the afternoon heat. Nobody did.

"It's a win, and you take those any way you can," he said Tuesday when he returned to River Highlands for media day, the first of many chores that go with being a defending champion.

Since the Travelers victory, which came by one shot over Bubba Watson and Charlie Hoffman, Leishman has continued to flourish on the Tour.

The 29-year-old Australian is 41st on the money list and has been in the top 10 in his last three starts.

He finished fourth at the Masters, playing the final round with fellow Aussie Adam Scott, who won the tournament in a playoff. Last week, he tied for eighth at The Players Championship and was just three shots off the lead on the back nine, but

See TRAVELERS, Page 12B

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Tiger Woods would not give any shots back to his pursuers.

"The experience here has helped me this year," he said. "When I am in contention, I can draw on this quite a lot. I knew my swing would hold up under pressure and going into a major I was wondering how it was going to go. But it is not that much different. It is still a golf tournament, and I did draw on this to give myself some confidence to pull off certain shots."

The Travelers has had very good fields the last few years, and at Tuesday's media meeting, tournament director Nathan Grube added a few more names to this year's field.

In addition to a previously announced group that includes Watson, Hunter Mahan, Zach Johnson, Justin Rose and Keegan Bradley, Grube recruited Ricky Fowler, Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter, Jason Dufner and Padraig Harrington to River Highlands for the tournament that starts June 17

Leishman, who lives with his wife and son in Virginia Beach, Va., is starting his fifth season on the PGA Tour after moving up from the Web.Com Tour. He was the Tour's rookie of the year in 2009, a season when he got his first taste of the spotlight. In the BMW Championship late in the season, he finished second to Tiger Woods; they played together in the final group that Sunday.

Since then, the Aussie feels he is getting comfortable in his job, and the results this year confirm that. He has been in the top 25 in five of 12 events and with the summer season at hand, he is looking forward to playing in the heat, which he considers his comfort zone.

Leishman is one of those players who seems to play above his stats.

He is not especially long, No. 93 in driving distance, and 109th in driving accuracy and 123rd in greens in regulation.

Not to worry, he is 40th in scoring average at 70.79 and 41st on the money list.

"Sometimes it is not about missing greens," he said, "but where you miss it. If you know the course well enough, you can miss nine greens as long as you miss in the right spot. I might have a lot of easy chips all day. That has a lot to do with it. and I am getting more experience with the courses."

At River Highlands, Leishman got comfortable last year, which was just his second time in the Travelers.

"The greens here are very similar to the ones I grew up on," he said, "And I like the heat."

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